Here I go again.

This is my NaNoWriMo novel from this year Klainified (no, I did not win *sigh*). As such it is very AU, set in Australia and probably wildly out of character. However I have always wanted to write zombie!Klaine and so I had a compulsive need to post this. Most of it is already written, I just have some editing to do. So (hopefully) updates will be quick. (I say this but knowing me they will eventually slow down).

Hope you enjoy, because it is kind of my baby. Good luck, let me know what you think. Love.

If life were a horror film I would be the first to die. It is something I have known for years now. That's not to say I have put a lot of thought into it, but haven't we all joked around with friends, who would be the hero and who would die first? There has never been a question; it would be me. I am the person who opens the door against all advice. I am the one who wanders off alone, only to be found minutes later by the rest of the group, my body the first indication that shit has just gotten real.

Fortunately for me life isn't a movie. And hopefully in the one hundred and twenty minutes of life I can survive past the opening credits.

The thing that probably tipped me off that something was wrong was my mother tried to eat me. It wasn't exactly in her normal, upper middle class behavior and was a cause for concern.

I came downstairs for breakfast, still a little hazy from sleep at the everyday time of seven. Usually she is standing in the kitchen with a cup of tea in one hand and digging through a fruit salad with the other, looking over her planner, pretending to care about one cause or another. Today she was not standing behind the marble of our kitchen island; I didn't pay it much attention. Maybe she was having a shower, or maybe my younger brother was refusing to get up. That was most likely the case.

I fixed myself breakfast of toast and coffee and started to read the newspaper, same as I did yesterday, and the day before. I like routine in the mornings. I'm all for spontaneity, but not at seven in the morning.

I heard a shuffling sound in the doorway and looked up. Now I know people do not look their best in the mornings, but this was something else. Usually my mother is the most put together person I know and even in the morning she looks better than most people do during anytime of the day. But this morning her hair was bedhead on steroids, it looked as though she had spent a considerable amount of time in a wind tunnel. Her skin was greyish, except for under her eyes where large purple circles had formed. She had sores all over her arms and neck, some of them open and weeping. The thing that sticks out in my mind was her eyes. They looked blank, unseeing, none of the usual sparkle of life. Yet there was no doubt about it, those eyes were trained on me.

She continued to walk into the room. Her body was seemed stiffer than usual, but she had little difficulty moving about. It was a strange combination, the stiff shuffle that seemed to allow her to move about with ease. Now at this point my brain was blank. I knew something was wrong, but other than that, nothing. There is something to be said for basic instinct. I don't know why but I stood up out of my chair and started to circle around the table. We were moving like that, slowly, a scene from some sort of bad western when she lunged.

If the eyes hadn't been an indicator, her jumping across the kitchen table, black teeth bared and aimed at my jugular was. And it was a fucking huge one. My mother could not move that fast. She also didn't try to rip out my throat.

Her fingers were fisting in the front of my shirt when I pulled away and legged it out of there. What the fuck was going on? Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew exactly what was happening, but I refused to believe it. How could I? It was absolutely ridiculous.

I was standing in the hall of our house, trying to plan my next move. I needed a weapon. If this were a movie there would be a baseball bat, or shotgun nearby. Unfortunately this was not a movie, and I did not live in America, I lived in suburban Sydney. As such the baseball bats and guns were limited. To none.

I was still telling myself that I did not live in America and would have to come up with something on my own when the shuffling came back. Apparently my mother was still after my blood.

I realize that I sound cold when telling this. But I have to let you know the creature that was hunting me in my own home was not my mother. I gave up on my family a long time ago. I miss them and I have mourned for them. Remember when I tell this story, they are not characters, the creatures are.

Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, this is a good bit. So my mother, well, the creature, was stalking the hallways at an alarming pace. I needed a weapon, and I needed it quickly. I spun around in circle at least three times before I spotted it, my brother's cricket bat. I had never been much into the sport, finding it a bit slow for my liking, but I grabbed the willow bat nonetheless. How quintessentially Australian; the perfect replacement for the Hollywood stereotype.

I raised the bat above my head. I had forgotten how heavy those things were, but my adrenaline was pumping and I had plenty strength. I'm small, but I'm a lot stronger than I look, I've had to be. I waited until the thing was in range, stepped over the crease and brought the bat down.

I cannot describe for you the sound of a cricket bat hitting a human's (well, previously human) head. The combination of hard and soft is ineffable. Try it sometime and find out.

I had bought myself some time. Something told me The Thing (I was now capitalizing in my head) wasn't dead. A part of my mind (the part I was still refusing to acknowledge) told me the only thing that would do it would be a gunshot. I was worried that this was the same part of my mind that had seen too many movies.

I stepped over the body and thought about my next move. All I really wanted to do was go up to my room and go back to sleep. Maybe if I woke up in a few hours everything would be back to normal and my mum would be brewing tea and worrying about flower arrangements. However that pesky little rational part of my brain told me going upstairs was a bad idea. If I were to lock myself in my room there would be no escape. The Creatures would gather at my door until they forced it open. My only choice would be out the window and I'm afraid of heights so there is no way in hell that is happening.

My brain was working faster than I realized at this point. It felt like hours ago I had brained what used to be my mother, yet it could only have been seconds. I was working my way towards my next move when my brother came down the stairs, his hair sticking up at all angles and only wearing boxers.

He grunted at me and tried to push past to get to the kitchen.

'Ah, no.' I pushed him back into the hall.

'What?' My translations from teenage boy to English may be a little rusty, with the dapper private school education kicking in, but I think that is pretty accurate.

I didn't have a plan, but I knew we needed to get out of the house. The shell of my mother was trying to eat her children, it just wasn't safe anymore. And we needed information. Somehow I doubt The Morning Show would be the most accurate source.

'Put some clothes on and grab some extras. Go into my room and grab me some shorts and a couple of t-shirts. Oh, and some boxers.' I figured clean clothes was something we were going to need, although I wasn't exactly sure why.

'Yuck, I'm not touching your underwear.' He started up the stairs and I seriously contemplated throwing the cricket bat still in my hand at his head.

'Just fucking do it!' I yelled. Panic was slowly making its way into my system.

The next step in my plan was getaway. I looked at the two sets of keys sitting in the bowl on the small table in the entranceway. One set were mine, unlocking a beat up old hatchback that had once belonged to my grandparents. The check engine light was perpetually on and I was in serious doubt as to whether I had enough fuel to get me to a petrol station, let alone wherever else we had to go. My parents had given it to me to "teach me the value of money" when all it really did was teach me to push it to the side of the road and fix it enough to get me home. The other choice was my fathers pride and joy. He was out of the country on business. Well that's what he told us. In all probability he was fucking his secretary in the next state over, but lets not dwell on details. The SUV was polished to within an inch of its life and full of premium fuel. I think my choice was clear. Really, what would you have done? I picked up the keys.

'Hurry up, dude.' I screamed up the stairs. I was getting antsy. I wanted to get on the road. Driving had always calmed me down. I could drive in circles for hours as long as I had enough fuel and a good playlist on my iPod.

'And bring my iPod.'

'Alright, alright.' He had finally put on a shirt and had an old sports bag slung over his shoulder. 'What are we rushing for anyway? You takin' me on an impromptu holiday or somethin'?' He scratched his neck as his eyes scanned the hall, resting on the prone form of our mother for the first time. His mouth dropped and I grabbed his arm to drag him out of the house.

'I'll explain in the car.'

'Blaine, what the fuck is going on.' He was starting to catch onto the panic.

'Seriously just get in the car.'

We scrambled in, a sudden rush to our movements. He threw the bag with our clothes in the back seat as I started the ignition. I reversed out of the driveway too quickly. I rammed the car into first and revved it too high. I finally got into a rhythm and couldn't help but feel like something final had happened. That maybe, just maybe, we would never see that house again.

'Okay, bro. Start talking.' My brother wasn't the kind of person to show emotion. He preferred to grunt and lock himself in his room with loud music. Out of all the things I had experienced that strange morning this sudden look of terror scarred me the most. It was real.

I took a deep breath and fought back tears. I'm not a brave person. The way I tell this story it sounds like I have a cool head, like I've got it all together. This is so far from the truth, I was a mess.

'Okay. Okay. So you know how I watch too many Zombie movies?' I gave him the side eye, expecting a remark about my lack of social life. No comment.

'And you know how at the beginning the protagonist always gets attacked by their loved one? And from then on they are fighting Zombies like nobodies business?'

He nodded. I think he was just as afraid of the words as I was.

'Mum just attacked me. She looked like she had just stepped out of a Halloween costume party. I smacked her on the head with a cricket bat hard enough to kill three people and I think she was barely unconscious.'

I wasn't so much talking to my brother at this point as myself. I was working the puzzle out aloud, fitting the pieces together. All those feelings nagging at the back of my brain were becoming coherent thoughts. And I did not like it.

'So what you're saying is this is a zombie movie?'

'No. This is real life. I am not a hero. We do not live in America. There is no such thing as zombies.' I ran my fingers through my hair, messing it a little, something I always did when I was stressed.

'Then what?'

'I have no fucking clue.'

I think this is about the point I introduce myself properly. If you are going to read my story you may as well know who I am. No, I am not some crazy sci-fi nerd who has seen so many zombie movies he is confusing fiction and real life. Well the sci-fi nerd bit might be a little true. Same with the zombie movie bit. But I will have you know, this is definitely real life.

My name is Blaine Anderson and I happen to think Sixteen Candles was the worst film ever made. No my parents are not huge John Hughes fans, its an old family name. Shut up.

So I have already told you I am a nerd who watches zombie movies and you have probably jumped to the conclusion that I am a loner with no friends. That's not true. I had good friends at school, especially amongst the acapella choir I was a member of, we were a tight bunch. But there is a funny thing about near apocalypses, you find out who your real friends are. Who would have thought at the beginning of this I didn't even know them yet. Alas, I'm jumping ahead of myself; you are not ready for that part of the story.

The idiot in my passenger seat is my younger brother Max. He is fourteen and male and therefore knows everything. He is pretty much your average teenager. He would have been the disgrace of the Anderson family had I been straight (I'm gay, by the way) but as it stands he just scrapes through for the number one spot.

So here we are, the Anderson Brothers team, driving to nowhere in particular, leaving our unconscious shell of a mother behind in our cheating bastard of a father's precious car. Maybe I had underestimated our ability to create and interesting film, I mean I've got the name.

After about a half an hour I started to think about where we were going. We needed a plan. We needed information. Maybe our mother was the only one, but I doubted it. There had to be more, Hollywood said so. As it turns out my brother was a mind reader.

'Sooo, oh brilliant leader, where are we headed?'

'First of all, fuck you.' A certain finger was directed his way, 'Second I don't know.'

'Sweet. You believe we are in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and we have no plan at all. Survival seems likely.' I may not be fluent in teenage boy grunting, but sarcasm is, like, my first language and I understood the meaning perfectly. We were fucked.

Also, I think it is about time I got a beta. I'm getting stressed rereading my work and always finding mistakes. So if anyone is interested, send me a message.